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Handbook of Energy Governance in Europe pp 1–22Cite as

European Union Energy Policy: A Discourse Perspective

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Abstract

In the history of European integration, common energy policy seems, in addition to trade policy, to be one of the earliest “European” issues, as exemplified by the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM). Instead, energy policy entered the treaties as a policy area of its own only with the Lisbon Treaty 2009, which did not entail substantial transfers of competences to the supranational level. In this development the discourse on energy policy was shaped by three frames – security (of supply), sustainability, and competitiveness, which guided European energy policy in different ways. This chapter will analyze the development of the energy policy within the integration process up to the latest development of the European Energy Union. The Energy Union is characterized by a new governance system which installs a soft governance with harder elements in order to steer member states’ energy policy with regard to the European energy transformation targets.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut of Political Science, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Michèle Knodt

  2. Nuertingen Geislingen University, Geislingen, Germany

    Marc Ringel

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  1. Michèle Knodt
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  2. Marc Ringel
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Correspondence to Michèle Knodt .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Political Science, Technical University of Darmstadt Institute of Political Science, Darmstadt, Germany

    Michèle Knodt

  2. Institute of Political Science, Technical University of Darmstadt Institute of Political Science, Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany

    Jörg Kemmerzell

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Knodt, M., Ringel, M. (2020). European Union Energy Policy: A Discourse Perspective. In: Knodt, M., Kemmerzell, J. (eds) Handbook of Energy Governance in Europe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73526-9_50-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73526-9_50-1

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  1. Latest

    European Union Energy Policy: A Discourse Perspective
    Published:
    01 March 2022

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73526-9_50-2

  2. Original

    European Union Energy Policy: A Discourse Perspective
    Published:
    05 March 2020

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73526-9_50-1

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